TowerFall Ascension is the definitive version of the hit archery combat game. Inspired by classics from the golden age of couch multiplayer, it's a 4-player local party game centering around hilarious, intense versus matches. The core mechanics are simple and accessible, but hard to master and combat is fierce.

July 8

We just uploaded a new update for everyone on Steam, tying up loose ends after the release of the Dark World Expansion.

The biggest change, by popular demand, is that Trigger Arrows now have a dedicated detonate button. There's also a new keyboard configuration menu. It lets you rebind the keys from in-game, assign multiple players per-keyboard, and saves your settings in Steam Cloud!

May 12

We've just released the largest update yet to the game, coinciding with the launch of the Dark World Expansion DLC! There's a ton of improvements and fixes here. In fact there's so much to list that I couldn't even fit it all in this post! Check out this forum thread for the full changelog.

You can now save up to 5 custom variant presets at once (was previously 3)

New Versus awards:

Happy Accident Award

Mastermind Award

Web of Lies Award

Gravedigger Award

Reanimator Award

Exorcist Award

Speed of Light Award

Hyper Booper

Hyper Martyr Award

Ally Oop Award

Bomb Squad Award

Nerves of Steel Award

Prism Warden Award

Special Delivery Award

Too Fast Too Furious

Caged Animal Award

Added more Team Deathmatch levels to the existing Versus towers. Every tower now has 6 Team levels. Most are modified versions of free-for-all maps, but Sunken City got a brand new level which is also playable in other modes

Added the “Session Stats” page to the Archives, which shows stats from the current play session and resets when the game is closed

Balance:

Merged FFA and 1v1 Tournament Rules into one ruleset simply called Tournament Rules. This ruleset contains only No Autobalance and Symmetrical Treasure

Slowed down the final “push” of the miasma as it closes in to encourage more kills before it consumes all the archers, and to make center-stage a more advantageous position

Sudden Death variant now starts with miasma 1 second into the match instead of 5 seconds

Rebalanced a lot of Versus arenas in the original levelsets

Jumping on a teammate’s head now shares arrows the same as bumping into them from the side

You can now hold the dodge button to extend your dodge time by 5 frames. This is known as “dodge stalling”

You can now catch arrows when you have a shield, but only if the arrow is not in a dangerous state (ie it would not hurt you anyways)

Arrows are no longer destroyed when crushed by moving solids

Arrow inventories are now visible during the round intro

Treasure changes:

Decreased the chance of no treasure spawning

The chance of getting special arrows out of a treasure chest is now normalized. In most towers, there is a 60% chance each chest has a special arrow pickup, chosen from the possible types for that level

No more than one of each orb pickup can spawn per level now. If the Chaos Orb spawns, no other orbs will spawn

The amount of each upgrade powerup (Wings, Looking Glass, Speed Boots) that can spawn per round is now capped by the amount of archers

Added a particle effect for hyper jumping to make it more readable

Archers will now slip off ledges while ducking, if they’re on the ledge by 3 or less pixels. Slipping starts 4 frames after you start ducking

You can now shoot the falling orbs in Twilight Spire to destroy them as they fall

Max Treasure variant now caps the amount of chests spawned per level to the amount of players + 2

Return as Ghosts variant improvements:

The delay from the last kill to the end of the round is doubled when there are ghosts alive

Ghosts can no longer kill for 30 frames after they finish spawning

Players can now control their ghost a bit during the spawn animation

The shoot button now triggers the ghost’s dash attack (was previously just the dodge button)

Ghosts can now open treasure chests. Chests will always spawn bomb traps when opened this way

Reviews

“Destined to be remembered as one of the best multiplayer games of all time”
CVG

About This Game

TowerFall Ascension is the definitive version of the hit archery combat game. Inspired by classics from the golden age of couch multiplayer, it's a 4-player local party game centering around hilarious, intense versus matches. The core mechanics are simple and accessible, but hard to master and combat is fierce. Loot treasure chests for game-changing power-ups, master the art of catching arrows out of the air, or descend on your foes and stomp them into submission. TowerFall is best played competitively with friends, cross-legged on the floor within punching distance of each other.

New in Ascension is the 1- or 2-player co-op Quest mode. Players work together, fighting off a variety of monsters and enemy archers across the land of TowerFall. It's a new adventure to explore when you don't have more friends handy to square off against.

New features in TowerFall Ascension include:

Brand new 1- or 2-player co-op Quest mode

50 additional Versus arenas, for a total of 120 unique maps

More game-changing power-ups, such as Drill Arrows that burrow through walls

4 new unlockable, playable archers, for a total of 8

A huge list of variants to customize your matches - a total of 75 ways to mix things up

If you have controllers and friends this is the finest local-co-op game you can get your hands on. If you don't have controllers and friends, this game makes it worth the cost to buy both of those things.

The steam recommandation system doesnt permit mixed reviews so I chose to not recommend this game, but I hesitated for a long time.

Towerfall is a Joust like game where you can fight against a human opponent locally in arenas, solo play levels or play them cooperatively.

1/ The arena brawl mode is incredibly GOOD.

If you have controllers, if you have friends who can come over and play with you, buy this game!

It's the funniest game of this genre I have played locally since the bomberman sness one. It's that good, it's a masterpiece.

2/ There are long time technical issues that are not fixed.

There is no network mode.

The default bindings of the pad and the keyboard are not really good and worse, you cant rebind them ingame.

The game recognizes only xbox pads (which are not very good for the price)

3/ the solo and coop game are terrible.It seems those modes have been put on top of the real game afterwards, as they are not properly designed. The levels are full of choke points, and the only challenge the game can throw at the player is overwhelming him with more entities, not clever enemy design, not clever mapping.Solo mode is a grinding chore.Timings are not properly tweaked, making use of the movement combos awkward and combined with the bindings the game isnt a fast flowing movement and fighting game anymore but an exercise in memory where you try to find the perfect way to beat every level by doing the same thing again and again. And even that is defeated by the game choice to enter a little bit of randomness in the entities start position, which changes nothing but just add to the time you need to pass to know every pattern.

I understand that this game is a one man operation and came from an other platform. This could explain some of the technical difficulties or some bad design choice. As I said it is still one of the best game ever in local multi.But those issues have been tackled to death by other games for a long time and they are resolved by other one-man games. Take a look at spelunky. Wether you like it or not, the timings of the entities, the reaction of the pad, everything is 100% precise and you can rebind controls.The game could have somehow worked in solo mode too and warrant a recommandation if some of those issues had been taken care of. In 2015, even if your game is an indie game with a retro look, we can't accept this kind of backward usability issues.

First off, the elephant in the room: This game is local multiplayer or single player only and essentially requires controllers to play. That being said, if you're interested and that's not a problem - it's worth it.

It's well designed to cater to both those who prefer casual play and those who want to master it. While new players will certainly feel less skilled, after getting a hang of the controls even they can get a few good shots in. Everyone I've played it with has enjoyed it after only a few rounds.

This is a super fun party game if you have 3 other friends, single player is meh but who cares.

HOWEVER, BE WARNED if you're not using xbox 360 controllers you are screwed, the key/button bindings don't match up on ANY of my game pads, the buttons are all wrong and it makes it seriously difficult to play.

PLEASE devs, know that your community is CRYING OUT for you to put in bindable keys!! Let me select what controller I'm using, then let me select the keys/buttons I want to use for what abilities. And allow us to bind multiple keys/buttons to the same ability.

This is a CRUCIAL feature, if you have any way of contacting the developers please remind them of what the community is desperately asking for, I'm fumbling through third party key binding programs trying to figure out how to change things to mine and my friends preferences. It's 2015! This is not on!